Members and officials of the Farmers’ Union of Wales engaged in successful discussions on issues of concern with local politicians Stephen Crabb MP, Simon Hart MP and Paul Davies AM at Pembrokeshire County Show.
High on the agenda was the current beef price crisis and members made their views clear that a drop of 64 pence a kilo between April 2013 and June 2014 was unsustainable and that the recently announced Russian import ban was likely to further exacerbate the problem.
“We urge the UK government to also look at the Irish and Polish imports which are currently flooding our market and the practices of the supermarkets as the price of British beef for the consumer has not fallen to reflect the current market price which we are receiving.
“The current beef price crisis coupled with the 15% loss of CAP monies is putting Welsh farmers at an unfair disadvantage,” said FUW Pembrokeshire county chairman Hywel Vaughan.
Members further raised the issue of labelling and packaging, making it clear that it was still not easy for consumers to make a quick informed decision about the origin of their meat when purchasing.
Other issued discussed included the impact of bovine TB on individual businesses, the new greening regulations under the CAP and the superfast broadband rollout.
Speaking at the show, FUW Pembrokeshire county executive officer Rebecca Voyle said: “We need the Welsh Government to make allowances for farmers making genuine errors in 2015 on their single applications forms and during the year as the introduction of the new scheme will see some significant changes the full details of which have yet to be provided to the industry.
“Further to this farmers are increasingly being expected to complete their paperwork online; for example application forms for the new Glastir Organic and Glastir Advanced schemes will only be available online. Whilst we are aware that Superfast broadband is being rolled out in Pembrokeshire there are still nine rural areas in the county without any or very poor broadband which have not yet been allocated a start date for installation, which is a concern.”
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From left: FUW vice president Richard Vaughan, Stephen Crabb MP, Simon Hart MP, FUW Pembrokeshire county chairman Hywel Vaughan and FUW Pembrokeshire president John Savins[/caption]